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Saturday, 17 November 2012

More on Miyazawa Resin Kits

After blogging about the 1/72nd scale Miyazawa resin kit of Glen here, I'm grateful to Ed DeKiep for finding and kindly sharing these images of other Miyazawa kits of IJN subjects. I'm guessing that they were perhaps available in the mid to late 1980s as the subjects they represent were kitted in plastic by mainstream Japanese manufacturers during the 1990s. The Fujimi Myrt was released in 1995, the Hasegawa Rex appeared in 1996 and the Fujimi Paul in 1998.

From the photos the well-presented and boxed kits look to be pretty neatly molded in resin, with white metal detail parts, vacform canopies and complete decal sheets. It doesn't appear that they were available outside Japan although the use of English on the boxes suggests perhaps an overseas mail order market. Completely new to me and I'd be pleased to receive any further information or anecdotes about this company.

Fujimi's Myrt was quite expensive when it first appeared and was eventually available in four versions, C6N1 and C6N2, the turbo-supercharged C6N2-Kai and the armed night fighter. The Miyazawa kit bridged the gap between the old Aoshima offering mentioned here and the new Fujimi range.

Of the Miyazawa floatplanes only the enigmatic and charismatic Norm has still not been kitted by a mainstream plastic manufacturer, although there is a recent and pretty good RS Models limited run kitand an older Aviation Usk (late Xotic-72) short run kit. With thanks to Ed for passing these images on.

Update

With thanks to Ed for passing on images of another Miyazawa floatplane kit - this time the Aichi M6A 'Seiran' submarine-borne Panama Canal attacker.

Nick,Thanks for this informative post on kits and a producer whose existence I never suspected before reading it!As for the Norm, the recent RS Models kit is actually quite good; I doubt we'll see the E15K kitted by any of the big guys anytime soon... Regards,

Miyazawa kits were 1/72 scale only, as far as I know. I saw them for sale in a Shinjuku, Tokyo hobby shop in 1996-97 and bought a couple. (Not cheap and mine are not for sale.) They were no more than a year or two old then, and a couple are featured in Model Arts of 1996-98. Basically free of air bubbles and generally excellent in shape, without warp but you'd never cut yourself on the trailing edges! Anyway, those kits disappeared when the Fujimi, MPM, Tamiya and Hasegawa kits of the same subjects were issued. I imagine that no more than 200 were cast of each subject.

A year or two later, Mechadoll resin kits appeared in the same store. They are of the same resin and very similar craftsmanship, so I suspect one or more of the craftsmen of Miyazawa had a hand in them. I shall try to get you a photo of one or two by year end, but you may want to remind me around December 10-15, please.

There is another kit of N1K1 seaplane,resin kit Asuka Models Red Baron n°3in 1/72 scaleI'll send you the photosinside the box there are no decalsand canopy, only a master and twosheets of transparent film to vacuformbut the propeller is in white metalBest regards, wonderful and useful web site for modellers,Luciano

Here are photos of another "garage kit" brand, Mechadoll. Only 1/72 scale, as far as I know. Kit 202 is a Ki-87. The manufacturer added some formers inside the fuselage; left a substantial recess for the turbocharger; and caused no air bubbles I can see. Wheel wells are shallow, however, and there was a sunken spot where an attaching pin was cast. No decals. Went on sale around 1996 for 4800 yen. Then there were apparently three other offerings, so that kit 206 is a Ki-94. By this time, they had dispensed with casting formers in the cockpit and now had printed the picture on the box top. This one was 5800 yen. Also very high quality, but the wings are slightly warped. Some lengthy comments are printed on a sheet in the Ki-94 kit. Among other things, they emphasize the effort to make all parts of the airframe accurate. They say two staff were added, and the next kit was planned to be a Tenrai, but they were having problems with the wings and nacelles and became distracted with making a Shusui. (They did eventually release the Tenrai.) How do I attach my photos, NM?

I don't think it is possible to embed or attach photos to comments other than by a link to an image hosting site like Photobucket. You are welcome to send them to me via my email contact link in the sidebar of the blog and I'll put them up in a blog post together with your comments here.

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